Ride of your Life
by Meowth's Toon Dragon
Summary: When Lifty and Shifty go for a day of fun at the local amusement park, little do they know they may get more thrills than they could want....


**Ride of your Life**

Starring Lifty and Shifty

Featuring Lumpy, Handy, Giggles, Rhyme, Mime, Petunia, Disco Bear, Pop, Cub, Sniffles, Russell

We start in on Lumpyland, where the grand reopening of the Devil's Course Roller Coaster is underway after the ride's being closed and under construction for the better part of the year, and Lifty and Shifty are walking along the parkway, their arms laden with snacks stolen from all the concession booths. The raccoons cannot stop pigging out on all the various treats they've made off with; popcorn, hot dogs, burgers, funnel cakes, candy apples, you name it! Shifty even has a slice of pizza in his mouth as he sniggers with glee at the massive haul, but when he bites down on it, his eyes water and he drops his stolen goods, the pizza burning hot. Lifty chuckles as he sees his brother trying to take a deep breath and fanning his mouth frantically to let the burn cool off. As the burn finally cools, Shifty casts a dark look at his giggling brother and starts trying to pick up his dropped treats. Suddenly Lifty spots the huge roller coaster and he tugs on his brother's shoulder, gesturing towards it. As the two raccoons look in awe at the huge coaster, their eyes get all starry-eyed and they know they HAVE to ride it! Without wasting a second, they dash towards the entrance to the ride and just narrowly get the front spot ahead of Pop, Cub, Disco Bear, Petunia, Sniffles, and Russell

At the control station, Handy's busy explaining to Lumpy the ride operator that while the construction's completed, he'd prefer if, for the sake of safety, he ran the first few rides at the slow speed, just to make sure the newly rebuilt tracks can handle the weight. But while he's busy telling the moose all this, Lumpy's mind is more concerned with thinking about how he can improve the taste of lettuce and it's only a yell from the carpenter beaver that wakes him from his daydream. "So you got all that", Handy asks the moose, who quickly nods his head and watches as the beaver leaves the ride booth. It's then that he looks out and sees the line for the coaster growing even bigger and, without wasting a second, pushes the button raising the bars on the carts and allowing the first 8 riders to board; Lifty sitting with Shifty, Pop holding Cub on his lap, Russell and Sniffles sharing a cart, and Disco Bear and Petunia all the way in the back seat much to the latter's disgust. As soon as he sees everyone seated, totally ignoring the obvious fact that Cub shouldn't even BE on the ride, he pushes a second button, causing the bars to lower and the ride to start up.

Near the front of the coaster, we can see our favorite deer cousins, Mime and Rhyme, doing their 5-star routine for a couple patrons and making quite a bit of money. As they hear the ride near them start up, they can't help but look at the magnifience of the newly rebuilt coaster, with its loop-de-loops, drops and corkscrews, a tear even coming to Rhyme's eye. But then he notices Giggles walking right by and, figuring it's a chance to not only net some more cash for them, but maybe even impress the chipmunk into giving them a kiss, they start their routine right back up, Rhyme holding Mime palm-to-palm while the latter's doing a handstand and juggling a couple flaming torches with his feet.

Back on the roller coaster, the carts are still heading up the first hill, slowly and steadily, while the riders sit back and brace themselves for the large drop that begins the ride. But Lumpy, who's watching the ride to make sure it goes smoothly, yawns and decides it'd be fun to speed the ride up. Reaching to his side, he pulls a lever marked speed and changes the setting from SLOW AND SMOOTH to MEDIUM CHAOS all the way to the highest setting, which is simply marked with a jolly roger. The riders feel a sharp jolt as the ride stops, then starts up again, moving considerably faster. Lifty and Shifty look at each other after the jolt and look down over the sides of the cart, but they don't notice anything wrong with the track or the cart, so they simply shrug and turn their attention back to the drop that's approaching. A few seconds later, the cart reaches the summit and it hangs there for a few moments before plunging down at high speed, all the riders screaming with Pop especially since the second the cart began to drop, Cub flew right out of his hands over the back of the cart!

Back at the performance, Mime and Rhyme have switched places, Rhyme not only juggling chainsaws with his feet, but singing squeakense opera as well! But as he hits a high note, something hits him in the head and causes him and Mime to come tumbling down with the chainsaws, much to the crowd's laughter. As the dust from the fall clears, we see that miraculously both of them managed to avoid getting cut up. Shaking his head after the abrupt fall, Rhyme looks around and sees what hit him; a giggling Cub! Mime and Rhyme simply look at each other, puzzled and wondering how he could fall out of the sky and how he avoided getting chopped up by the running chainsaws as well.

The ride, by now, has gotten past the first drop and is starting on the octuple loop-de-loop, the beams beneath it slowly creaking and shaking. But when the cart goes up and down the first loop, Lifty and Shifty start to feel their tummies looping too. Apparently, pigging out right before a big roller coaster was not exactly the smartest thing to do. By the third loop, both raccoons are turning pale green and are looking down at the floor of the cart trying to stop the dizziness and nausea starting to form. But as it heads up and goes down the fourth loop, the high speed of the cart causes one of the planks on the track to break in half upon contact with the cart's wheels, sending both parts shooting out into the parkway with the speed of a shot bullet.

Mime and Rhyme are trying to ask Cub what happened, but all the child can do is laugh and coo. They both look at each other in frustration at having to deal with the kid and having lost their crowd and turn to try and ask the kid again, but as they turn back towards him, one of the board halves shoots right in the space between their two heads and goes right through Cub's neck. The two deer watch in horror as Cub's head, his face frozen in a look of surprise, slowly slides off his split neck and lands in his lap. With a scream, they both run from the now headless corpse before anyone can accuse them of murder.

The cart's finally gotten past the 8 loops, but Lifty and Shifty are both gagging uncontrollably and as the cart heads down another deep drop, they know they can't hold it in anymore. Lifty lifts his head over the side of the cart and Shifty takes his fedora off and places it under his mouth and the both of them proceed to throw up all the snacks they had eaten before they got on. But while Shifty's barfing into his hat, Lifty's puke is being sent backwards and splattering all over the other riders, some of the chunks flying right into Petunia's face. For the OCD-prone skunk, it's too much and she desperately tries to lift off the bar to get off the ride and get herself clean, forgetting that the ride's still in motion! Disco Bear tries to plead with her to stay on the ride, saying he doesn't care if she's covered in throw-up (he MUST be desperate!), but it's to no avail as Petunia succeeds in lifting up the shabbily bolted in bar right as the cart starts up another steep hill, sending the standing skunk falling right over the back of the cart and into the girders and beams, horribly slicing and bashing her up until she's left in several pieces.

The deer cousins, meanwhile, are trying to resume their interrupted act, their confidence shaken but not broken, with Mime getting ready to "down" the flammable liquid needed for him to breathe fire and Rhyme holding up a small wooden statue of a heart for his cousin to light up. But as Mime puts the bottle to his lips, one of the bloody chunks of Petunia comes crashing down on him, causing the bottle to get jammed into his throat and the liquid inside to go down into his stomach. Rhyme sees the bottle get forced down and, dropping the statue, rushes to Mime and places his paws firmly on the end of the bottle still sticking out of the deer's mouth. With a mighty yank, Rhyme succeeds in pulling the bottle out of Mime's mouth and accidently flinging it high over his head by the force of his pull. Seeing Mime choking and gagging, trying to get the dangerous liquid out of his stomach, he reaches into his jacket and pulls out another bottle, this one half-full, which he starts to pour down the deer's throat until the whole bottle's empty. The second the bottle is drained and put back into his jacket, the deer takes a couple steps back and waits for the liquid to take effect. Sure enough, a few seconds later, Mime gags, rushes to a nearby trash can, and spews all the liquid out, along with some of the lunch he and Rhyme had eaten before performing. All Rhyme can do is let out a sigh of annoyance at the second interruption.

Disco Bear, meanwhile, tries to put the bar back down in his cart only to have it keep popping up. After 5 tries of pushing it down and having it pop back up, the bear stands up while the track's on a straightaway and forces the bar back down. Hearing the clicking sound of the bar going back into it's locked position, Disco Bear smiles and starts to sit back down. But the one thing he fails to notice is the straightaway leading into a low tunnel and as the cart goes through it, the bridge of the tunnel catches Disco Bear right through the center of his head, cutting off his head from the nose up and leaving the upper half of Disco Bear's skull lying on the tunnel top. The half-headless body wobbles for a few moments before collapsing into the seat with blood pouring onto the floor of the cart. As the cart finally emerges of the tunnel Sniffles and Russell, having heard Disco Bear's abrupt cry and the thud of his body falling, look behind them and see the dead bear laying on the seat, his skull missing from the top of the nose up like a pumpkin with it's top cut off. Panicking, Russell starts trying to lift his bar up to get off this nightmare of a ride. But the anteater, having a little more brains than his seatmate, grabs the otter's hands, allowing the hook to pierce through the palm of his left hand and tells the pirate to breathe deeply. Right as Russell starts to calm down, the cart passes through a girder tunnel and when it emerges the pirate finds himself holding the dismembered hands of the anteater, a chunk of the cart now missing. When the high-speed cart had gone through the tunnel, the vibrations of it had caused one of the half-bolted in metal beams to fall and land right onto the poor anteater, crushing him into the floor of the cart and breaking the cart in half, sending it and the back car falling out over the side of the coaster.

On the ground, Mime's still looking pale as he's finished blowing chow into the trashcan and getting the flammable liquid out of his system, but he and Rhyme are willing to try the performance one more time, Rhyme standing against the cotton candy stand wall nearby with a blindfold on as Mime prepares to throw a set of sharp knives at him. But as Mime throws the first two into the wall by Rhyme's outstretched arms, he sees a large shadow forming underneath them. Being a mime, he can't yell out to Rhyme to move, so he just runs out of the shadows range, only stopping when he hears the loud clatter of the detached carts hitting the ground. With a sad swallow, he looks towards the crash, expecting to see his cousin crushed. But to his surprise, the deer's still standing, the carts and beam having fallen around him and missing the deer completely, albeit crushing the snack stand he was against. Putting his arm back and feeling himself able to move his limb behind his back, no wall to restrict the movement, the deer lets out a loud yell and rips the blindfold right off, his face now bearing an expression of anger at having had enough of the damn interruptions. Picking up one of the chainsaws laying nearby and climbing over the wreckage, he calls to his cousin, who's also pretty pissed at this point and the two of them head over to the ride station to have a "talk" with the operator.

By now, Lifty and Shifty have finally gotten most of the vomit out of their stomachs and are now sitting back against the seat, moaning as Shifty pours the barf out of his fedora and onto the rails next to them before placing it back upon his head. It's then they see the ride heading up the summit of the next big drop and they both look at each other with pained looks in their faces. Meanwhile Russell's busy clutching onto the remaining half of his cart and screaming his head off, nearly driven mad by the whole ordeal. It's then that he sees the empty seat next to Pop and he lets out a crazed laugh, knowing if he can just get himself in that empty seat, he may survive the whole ordeal yet. Turning his body sharply, he reaches out with his hook hand and tries to clutch the back of the cart with the curve of the blade. But in his crazed state, he aims a little too high and his hook goes not onto the back of the cart, but onto the back of Pop's head, causing the fatherly bear to scream in pain. This drives the pirate totally off his rocker and, seeing the last few deep drops coming up, digs his hook deeper into Pop's skull allowing him to swing onto the edge of the cart and grab it with his free hand. But as he tries to pull himself up into the cart, his hook, by now buried deep into Pop's head, accidently pulls him back and starts breaking his neck, his body still fastened underneath the safety bar tightly. The otter keeps trying to pull himself up, unknowningly bending Pop's head backward with each pull, until finally with a sharp CRACK, he manages to both pull himself into the cart and pull Pop's head back to the point where it's broken completely off the bone and is now only hanging on by the bare strands of tough skin comprising the back of his neck. As he tumbles into the cart, the coaster starts into the first final deep drop and the force of the decline causes his loosely strapped head to buckle forward, ripping completely off the few sinews that were still holding it on and sending it flying towards the ground.

By this time, Handy's heard all the screams from the crowd looking at the coaster and the beaver walks up to see his precious rebuilt coaster becoming an instrument of demise! With an angry grunt, he rushes over to get Lumpy to stop the ride, but he doesn't get more than a few steps before Pop's head, now shooting at high velocity, collides into his own and crushes his skull like a ripe melon, sending his hard hat flying behind him and landing in the path of two oncoming deer.

Rhyme and Mime are halfway to the operation booth, the chainsaw in Rhyme's hands running and rearing to go. But as Rhyme rushes past the booth marking the entrance to the coaster, he's so focused on confronting the operator that he slips on the hard hat, causing him to fall backwards in a comedic style and landing flat on his back, the wind knocked out of him. But as Rhyme lays stunned on the ground, he sees to his horror the chainsaw flipping in the air still running. He tries to move out of the way, but the running blade of the saw catches him right in the middle of his chest, the sharp running edges shredding through his organs and causing his body to shake uncontrollably as dark clotted blood starts spewing from his mouth. Mime rushes over and tries desperately to remove the chainsaw, but the damage from the blade's too great and as he watches in terror, his cousin's eyes roll back into his head and his barely-lifted head falls back against the pavement, his chest now almost cut completely in half. With a crazed look in his own eyes, he starts yanking as hard as he can to remove the saw from Rhyme's body, but he pulls on it too hard and, while he manages to rip the saw out, he not only cuts his cousin's chest completely in two, but he flings the chainsaw over his shoulder and in the direction of the operator's booth, the blade STILL going at full force!

Back in the operator's station Lumpy, who's just seen both Handy and Rhyme die horribly, finally realizes he needs to stop the ride and he goes to pull up the lever setting the speed back to SLOW AND SMOOTH. But right as he reaches the control lever, he stops dead in his tracks as the flung chainsaw flies in through the open door behind him and into the back of his head blade first. As he feels around frantically trying to pull out the saw, he feels the blades cutting into his little brain and starts to scream for help. But it only takes a few seconds for the blades to frappe his brain and silence his screams, causing his lifeless body to come crashing down not upon the speed switch, but upon a large red button marked DO NOT TOUCH! (seems like all the best machines have those now!) As soon as the button's pressed, it causes a small timer to go on above the button reading 2:00 and the motor to stop dead, in effect halting the ride... RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FINAL DROP!

On the ride, the 3 surviving riders; Lifty, Shifty, and Russell are screaming their heads off in terror on the last few drops, the former two holding onto each other for dear life, when they feel the cart come to a sudden stop halfway down the final descent that would lead the track back down to safety. The three of them look at each other, wondering if the ride from hell has finally come to an end, when they hear the ghastly sound of the beams underneath shaking and starting to give way. Without wasting even a moment, the two raccoons use their combined strength to push away the bar and climb out of their car, running down the wide rails as fast as they can! Remembering the third passenger, Russell, Shifty yells back for Russell to get off the ride, but sees the sea otter actually unable to get out of the car. When the ride stopped suddenly, it caused Pop's now stiff body to fall out from under the safety bar and onto the pirate's peg legs, trapping them against the cold steel of the floor! The sea otter tries desperately to pull his legs out from under the dead body, but it's of no use as the impact of the body smashing against his legs actually has actually broken what little of his natural lower limbs he has left. Knowing to go back would be suicide, the two raccoons just look solemnly at the trapped sea otter and rush down the rails as fast as their legs can take them. Right as they reach the end of the rail and jump off, the timer in the booth reaches 0:00 and the whole ride starts to collapse out from under Russell, the foundation of the ride having just been blown up thanks to the self-destruct button pushed by Lumpy's body and sending him and the whole ride down to the ground.

Mime's looking at his dead cousin, tears pouring from his eyes, and wondering how he'll ever be able to perform again. But he doesn't have much time to wonder as he hears the sounds of the ride starting to fall apart. He dashes away, trying to get to safety, but his luck's finally run out as one of the heavy wheels, shot out from the collapse of the coaster, goes right into his back and sends him sprawling to the ground. As he turns around trying to get up, he sees one of the big beams from the first drop starting to fall towards him. He starts to get up, but doesn't get very far before the board hits him, crushing his body from the waist down and causing blood to spray from his mouth like a fountain. It's then that another one of the wooden beams, splintered off the welcome sign by the force of the implosion, falls through the pinned down Mime's heart, finally killing him and ending his pain.

As the dust clears from the massive collapse clears, we see Lifty and Shifty huddled against each other, waiting for death to come. But as they open their eyes, they discover a miracle; they're both alive! They're a little queasy and scared, but alive! It's then that they remember Russell and they start to head towards the wreckage to look for the sea otter, but they don't have to look for long as they quickly see his crushed body, smashed against the ground and the remains of the cart. As they look around the collapsed coaster, now knowing that they may never come back to this hell trap ever again, they step onto the parkway and head for the exit. But as they approach it, Giggles comes up to them with a large thing of cotton candy and, after tearing off a nice chunk of it, offers the two raccoons a bite. But the kleptomaniac raccoons are so queasy and so dizzy from the ride from hell that the sight of the cotton candy alone makes them go pale green again and we iris out on them covering their mouths and looking like they're about to be sick again.

Moral: Live every day like it's your last!


End file.
